In 1996, when the time since the advent of “systems of care” (Stroul and Friedman
1996) for youths with serious emotional and behavioral problems was still measured in terms of years and not decades, this journal provided the children’s services field with a landmark Special Issue focused on research on the wraparound process and individualized services for children with complex needs (Clark and Clarke
1996). The Special Issue aimed to provide the first comprehensive academic perspective on wraparound, which was at the time one of a variety of “innovative alternatives to highly restrictive, categorical services and costly institutional care” (p. 2), on which outcomes studies were only beginning to be published. …